09 September 2008

Like his pal in hippie-tude, the infamous butt-sniffer Dr Dawg... and fearless, er... clueless leader Steffi D... BigCityLiberal thinks taking perfectly legal firearms away from law-abiding citizens... is the answer to all our recent "bodies in the streets" issues.

Well... it's certainly easier than trying to deal with the various factions in the GTA who are using smuggled, illegal weapons to conduct a bloody insurgency against each other.

-- TORONTO -- "We're appealing for members of the community to come forward," Det-Sgt. Peter Moreira said.

"It happened in the middle of the day and there's lots of people around. We're confident a great number of people saw what happened." But even the youths who charged past the police tape refused to speak with officers.

The area has become increasingly violent over the past few years, with gunfire becoming more and more frequent, area residents said.

Just over a month ago, during Jamaica Day celebrations, Dominic Shearer-Hanomansingh was shot in the head outside an apartment building a block down the street.

*"jag says... The fact is, most of the people killed in Toronto are black, and they are killed by other blacks."

okay, james... brace yourself for the howling mob looking to string up another "racist"... because you just used the word "black."

the fact is, though, this isn't about race... it's about culture.

and i've had this discussion before... many times, in fact... as on this totally unrelated thread...

"i despise politically correct posturing, which is mostly about an unwillingness to address indisputable facts, or to refuse to call things by their actual names."

"to deny that there is a huge social dislocation in many of toronto's ethnic communities is sheer madness. to deny that there is an epidemic of young black men killing other young black men... serves no one, least of all young black men, in those communities."

"and kateland knows that. she's just pissed that her sons get lumped in with the crazies... and that's a legitimate beef."

"but pretending the problem doesn't exist is insane. the crazies are out there... and, thank the fates, (and our fleeing toronto, years back) they aren't gunnin' for my kid."

Yep, aware of the post and agree with it. I just don't have the data to support the contention that, for instance, this is a Jamaican problem and not a black problem (i.e. one is cultural, one is race). But I'm pretty sure it is (and see this from Ottawa Watch, he nails it:

When you have to lie outright to make your points, I can afford to sit back and laugh. I'm laughing now.

I've never been outspoken on gun control. In fact, I'm not keen on it, and am on record as opposing the gun registry.

Nor did I ever buy into the fake list of books that James is wittering on about. My claim goes no further than established fact, namely, that Palin asked the town librarian if she would consider removing unspecified books from the shelves, the librarian said Nothing doing in no uncertain terms, and shortly thereafter she was fired. She was reinstated only after a vociferous public protest in Wasilla.

Well Dawg, in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does".

Try this:

http://tinyurl.com/5npmc7

or here:

http://tinyurl.com/5t5v7k

This may be the most relevant point:

"Four days before the exchange at the City Council, Emmons got a letter from Palin asking for her resignation. Similar letters went to Police Chief Irl Stambaugh, public works director Jack Felton and finance director Duane Dvorak. John Cooper, a fifth director, resigned after Palin eliminated his job overseeing the city museum.

Palin told the Anchorage Daily News then that the letters were just a test of loyalty as she took on the mayor's job, which she'd won from three-term mayor John Stein in a hard-fought election. Stein had hired many of the department heads. Both Emmons and Stambaugh had publicly supported him against Palin.

Emmons survived the loyalty test and a second one a few months later. She resigned in August 1999, two months before Palin was voted in for a second mayoral term."

So BEFORE there was any discussion about censorship, the Library director was on thin ice. And then she survived the rest of Palin's first term. I guess Palin could use some lessons from your left-wing co-religionists about purges, but hardly a "big thing".

I know that your doctorate is in "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink", and that you have the power to see into people's minds like a Nostradawgmus, but it would appear to a non-partisan that Palin did little more than what any other politician with the same power has ever done.

Not good enough. You have attributed a quote to me that is false ("I'm with Stephen Harper on this one"). I have never posted directly on the subject, but I alluded to the gun registry and being persuaded to oppose it here.

As for James: nice weaseling, but I caught you in a lie as well, and you should have the grace to admit it and apologize. I never once stated that "Palin ordered books to be banned," much less pushed that phoney list that's been floating around, as you suggested. If you want to attempt to refute what I actually have said--that Palin explored the possibility of book-banning with a librarian who reacted strongly, and whom Palin shortly afterwards fired--then have at it, but that's quite a different thing. It's not out of character for an evangelical to want books removed from libraries, after all.

Nor was this an allegation of a "conspiracy." You people are so trapped in your own rhetoric and memes that you just make stuff up about your opponents. Confusing stuff, too. But keep setting up those straw, er, dawgs. Better than dealing with issues and facts plainly, eh?

[S]he and her crew turned me around on the gun registry question over the course of a drunken evening at the Gold Rush Inn in Whitehorse.

I don't see any equivocation there. That was thirteen years ago. As I said, I'm on the record.

As for James, I linked directly to the article in my own post, and I have heard nothing since that refutes it. Palin now claims she was merely being "rhetorical"--talk about parsing.

That she had book-banning in mind is beyond a reasonable doubt. That she backed off is also evident. James' disingenuous comment that the librarian finished her term left out the rather important fact that she had been fired and was only restored to her position after a public outcry.

Dawg: YOU are accusing others of parsing? Good goddess, that's a ripper, that is.

Considering you started here:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/6fv57y

with four main points:

1) she's inexperienced and not a very good mayor (you link to a Kos Kid Diary who says: I was so young when I moved to Wasilla that I had to piece Palin's tenure together from memory and wikipedia

In other words, a D- in any class I took.

2) She supported Buchanan (you had to retract)

3) She wants creationism in the classroom (sorry, but no. She unfortunately personally believes in some sort of crap, (intelligent design) but she didn’t try to force the schools to teach it (even if a governor could); she said if someone brought it up, it was an appropriate subject for debate.

4) She fired the public safety commissioner for not firing a bad cop.

Now, as someone at TalkLeft has said, "Making a victim of Wooten is impossible".

1)She came to power in a debt-free town and left it with a debt of $23 million. The place is an urban sprawl disaster zone.

2)I did retract on Buchanan. When I'm wrong, I don't make smart-ass update posts like the Macadamia Nut--I retract. You seem to regard this as a sign of weakness.

3)she said if someone brought [creationism] up, it was an appropriate subject for debate. In a science class? You're equivocating. This is anything but appropriate. And you're revising history just a tad. What part of "Teach both" do you not understand?

4)We'll see how Troopergate fares--there will be a report in October. I have said no more than that.

5)I did not "retract" any claim about Palin's belonging to the AIP, because I didn't make one in the first place. Go back and read my post again.

So, on your five points, you were correct on the second, uninformed on the first and third, disingenuous on the fourth and untruthful on the fifth. This place is having a bad effect on you.

Whooee! well I dunno anythin' about dis here batting avg. but if that's any indication how this dawg hunts why we folk here in knuckledrag mouthbreathing tarsand redneck country be takin' dis huntin' dawg out behind the barn and introducin' it to Mr. .22 Cooey.

1) is a matter of opinion. She was re-elected as mayor, after all. You don't like urban sprawl? Neither do I. But people who shop and work there obviously do. How can I be wrong about something so subjective?

I guess I could go to wikipedia like the Krazy Kos Kids you quote.

2) it is a sign of weakness when you jump on these scraps of gossip. True, you aren't the CBC which was still airing rumours that even Sullivan was ignoring.

3) what part of the article do YOU not understand:

"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum...

[Palin said] teaching creationism is nothing she has campaigned about or even given much thought to."

Really, Dawg. Right there in the article you gave us. Did you read right to the end or just root around like a mutt in my garbage until you found the anti-Palin quote and quit?

4) some would take your inclusion of an exclamation mark "...in October!" as disingenuous. It certainly is an editorial comment, so if you'd like you can explain why you used it, if not to infer something improper on Palin's part to the timing.

5) so, when you wrote: "A story of perhaps more interest at this point is the one about Palin's links to the secessionist Alaska Independence Party." you meant some OTHER AIP?

If I may, being a keen observer of the sick, the lame and the lazy it's my opinion the Dawg is suffering from cystitis(observed him peeing on Tabby Jack's bicycle tire), a touch of gastric torsion(evidenced by his contortions on display here) and displaying symptoms of distemper(read his comments).

Nostalgie de la boue is all very well, but after this post it's time to leave you with the tadpoles. There are only so many hours in the day, and dealing with your moving goalposts and your on-going disingenuousness is keeping me from important matters--like getting the garbage out.

Let me address in point form your dishonesty:

1) What, no mention of the $23 million debt with which Governor Palin left Wasilla saddled? Talking about her voter base, having abandoned the flip reference to KosKids, and no mention of the state she left Wasilla in--which was my original point?

2) The Buchanan story was more than a "scrap of gossip." It was a lead story for days in what you folks are pleased to call the "MSM." We had Buchanan himself calling her one of his "brigaders." Yes, after a time this proved to be so much hot air, and I, for one, promptly took back without equivocation my retailing of what had been reported in reputable places as true.

Why should I make apologies for repeating sourced material and then retracting when it proves to be false? And how many of your blog-buddies on the Right ever retract anything, by the way?

But by all means make the most of this second point, because it's all you get.

3)Gosh, you've abandoned the library issue, which is just as well, because even factcheck.org has had to add considerable qualifying material to its original blithe assertion that there was nothing to see here. And with your abandoning of the issue, you also jettison your silly talk about my alleged accusation of a "conspiracy," which was, admit it, just you making stuff up.

Good move on your part, in any case. So you now skip to the creationism issue, and pretend that the link that I provided to you is a basis for criticizing my original assertion.

Gosh, those goal-posts must be heavy. Put them down a spell, and recall that I did not assert that she brought in or intended to bring in legislation on the subject, and I did not assert that she wanted creationism made a mandatory part of the curriculum.

I said, "She wants creationism discussed in the classroom."

She does. The link I provided proves it. "Teach both." Her backpedaling since is not convincing, but to cut to the chase, talking about creationism in a science class, no matter now it comes up, is seriously OT, but she hasn't moved off that position.

4) This is where your flailing becomes seriously pathetic:

some would take your inclusion of an exclamation mark "...in October!" as disingenuous. It certainly is an editorial comment, so if you'd like you can explain why you used it, if not to infer something improper on Palin's part to the timing.

Oh, those goal-posts must be chafing! Take another rest and listen up.

Here is what I said:

She's presently embroiled in a major scandal, allegedly firing Alaska's police chief for refusing to can a state trooper involved in a messy divorce with her sister. The report of a special prosecutor is due--in October!

Indeed she is embroiled in a scandal. Indeed the report is due one month before the election--so-called "October surprise" time. And the outcome of such reports is never a dead cert either way.

You know that. And you also know that I was referring to the risks inherent in McCain's choice. Your suggestion (and I'm being kind here) that I have prejudged the outcome of the report is, frankly, bogus.

5) Here is where the goalposts finally topple from your unsteady grip and bean you but good:

"A story of perhaps more interest at this point is the one about Palin's links to the secessionist Alaska Independence Party." you meant some OTHER AIP?

Let's recall what you originally claimed:

You also had to retract the slander that Palin belonged to a secessionist Party.

But now you dishonestly throw up a smokescreen. You quote me accurately enough--finally. I said that the story might be perhaps of more interest than the Buchanan one, which had run out of oxygen. I didn't a) claim it to be true, or b) retract it (because I didn't have to).

But, refusing to address your own original claim, you now bluster about "some other AIP" and Andrew Sullivan.

Not your finest hour, James. I'll stop just short of calling you a liar, and put this sad performance down to serious intellectual confusion, the noxious influence of our host, and possible over-imbibition.

I'll have fun ripping your increasingly hilarious role of Nostradawgmus, providing one National Enquirer-like prediction after another.

But for the other readers, what Dawg has written is a well-versed text of semantic gymnastics.

I will certainly remember this one:

Whenever you want to slander somebody, just say "...a story of perhaps more interest". Brilliant, actually. By using it, you don't have to actually PROVE anything. You just use it to muddy the waters.

For instance, I could say "forget a small town library. A story of perhaps more interest is that Obama may have to testify at Tony Rezko's trial".

And when folks like Dawg say "you're just moving the goalposts again! Don't you CARE about small town libraries", you'll pretty much know they ain't out for truth. This is a blood sport to them. Except when the other side fights back. They don't like that much.